


Regression

by doublejoint



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Established Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23638048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: There is so little in Masako’s control right now that it’s like being an angry child again, grasping onto things until they snap or until they slip away.
Relationships: Araki Masako/Alexandra Garcia
Kudos: 1





	Regression

**Author's Note:**

> references to death/apocalyptic danger

Masako has not thought of the snow as pretty for many years--a hindrance for her bike, a reason for the snowplows to wake her up at night, puddles mixed with sand and car exhaust with uneven patterns of footprints going every which way, yes. But now, when she and Alex might as well be the only two people in the world, and the generator is working and the space heaters are warming the tiny dorm room they’ve co-opted for themselves, she can watch it fall and blanket the outside like she did when she was a kid, hoping for a school cancellation o r an excuse to build a snowman or go sledding.

Needless excursions are too dangerous, with all this snow too easy to reveal themselves to anyone and anything to risk, at least until the deer trek through it in search of food or new territory. Everything is dangerous and Masako tries not to worry too much; there are are only so many things she can keep on her mind at once, Alex’s vision and the electricity staying on and making sure the deer meat they already have is drying out nicely into jerky, the continual operation of the miniature radio they’ve set up to receive any signal, their dwindling stock of supplies. Sometimes she wishes she still smoked; it’s been years and feels like lifetimes. The angry young woman who’d swung a sword without knowing how to use it, driven her motorcycle without any idea that she’d ever be cut off from gas supplies, and bleached her hair white-blonde seems a separate entity, something Masako as she is now, in the world she lives in, never could have been, even though she remembers it so clearly. 

Her sword now slices through wildlife caught in her traps, rabbits and deer, mercy-killing them so that she and Alex have enough to eat. They’ve never flinched away from it; the deer are overpopulated now, no humans with their cars and crowds to force them away. They run through the city like ghosts, like legends, like something out of an animated movie or a video game. This still sometimes doesn’t feel real; it’s a simulation, an endless dream of a world left vacant due to the limits of her imagination, a thought experiment carried too far. 

There’s an outdoor basketball court within walking distance, or there was--Masako entertains the thought of going there someday, but it’s too far, too hazardous, too possibly overtaken by animals or territorial humans, or simply broken down, the hoops rusted away and the poles collapsed from the battering of the weather. They can’t use any of the courts in the gym any longer, but they pass a ball back and forth when it’s warm out sometimes, keep it full with one of the air pumps they’d salvaged. 

It hadn’t come all at once, but perhaps that would have been a mercy, gas lines left open and stoves ablaze, electricity sparking wildfires undeterred by the rain and snow, no room for anyone to flee. But the people had had time to leave, and some had stayed, and none of them had come back; none of them will come out now. Occasionally, Masako hears the echoes of a bicycle bell carried on the wind, but it’s probably wishful thinking. Occasionally, the food stores will appear disturbed, but it’s probably a feral cat or a small deer, not enough to be many humans at any rate. If it’s just one, Masako and Alex aren’t trying to appear hostile, just be left alone. 

But what will happen ten, fifteen years from now, if they’re still around? What will happen if one of them dies before then? Every day has always been a set of chances, a series of what-ifs, but now they’re only too aware. What if they become unable to navigate the stairs? What if their food is all destroyed? What if the deer fall ill to a plague? What if they need genuine medical attention, for a persistent headache or a stab from a deer’s antlers or a broken leg? Speculation helps prepare; Masako’s heard that thousands of times in thousands of contexts. And yet, here, what is worth speculation? What might come to pass? This is not the triviality of a high school basketball game, unknown factors relating to kids doing something stupid and ultimately harmless (or, at least, treatable). Some days, Masako doesn’t think of it at all, but days like today the spectres of what-if and maybe snap at her shoulders and bite at her collarbones.

There is nothing to be done; her mother would always say that, mouth pressed into a line. What has happened has happened; what will happen will happen. There is so little in Masako’s control right now that it’s like being an angry child again, grasping onto things until they snap or until they slip away.

Sometimes, when they were so much younger (not much younger, really, but in another lifetime) she had wished she and Alex were the only ones in the world, for a moment or two. She can’t tell Alex that she ever had, in case this is some twisted way of the world fulfilling her wishes. That’s impossible, a roundabout way of getting some blame onto someone, some known path and origin, something that makes Masako sleep both better and worse at night.

“I want to go skating,” Alex says, the skin of her cheek warm against Masako’s neck.

She’s contorting herself to fit, and Masako obliges her, moving over and making it easier, leaning against the wall. Alex still sleeps naked, and Masako’s yelled at her enough times that she only does it now when she wants to pick a fight or she’s really worried. If they have to run, that’s a few extra seconds that sleeping fully-clothed would eliminate.

They’ve never had to run, though. They’ve never had to move.

Masako can’t let her brain get anywhere near wishing for excitement, just in case.

“Me too. When all this is over.”

(If it’s ever over, if they’re alive and in any condition to skate.)

“That’ll be fun.”

Alex kisses the hollow of Masako’s neck, wrapping her body around Masako’s, her way of saying hey, loosen up, you can’t anticipate everything, we’ll see the danger when it comes. Maybe it’s a lie, but Masako takes it on her tongue like candy and lets it sit. 

“Yeah.”


End file.
